WASHINGTON — The antique traditions of the U.S. Supreme Court collided with the now-now-now news
media yesterday, resulting in chaos and chagrin as two cable-TV networks wrongly reported that the
heart of President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law had been overturned.

The erroneous initial reports came as journalists and amateur legal analysts everywhere rushed
to extract a clear headline from 193 pages of complicated legal opinion from the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, at 10:07 a.m., several news organizations reported that the law had been upheld.

After their initial reports, CNN and Fox News reversed course, correcting their first, hasty
readings of the ruling — but not before a few Republican members of the House of Representatives
reacted to the false reports.

At least six House Republicans deleted celebratory messages on Twitter after hearing that the
cable networks’ reports were wrong, according to the Sunlight Foundation, a group that promotes
government transparency.

This is not the first time television networks have stumbled as they raced to be a few seconds
ahead in reporting a court ruling.

In 2004, the CNBC and MSNBC initially botched the verdict in the Martha Stewart insider-trading
case.

Election coverage has famously caused misfires, too. During the 2000 presidential election,
networks declared Democrat Al Gore the winner in Florida. The Supreme Court eventually resolved a
vote recount dispute in Florida in favor of Republican George W. Bush, handing him the
presidency.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Chief Justice John Roberts’ explanation of the court’s
ruling had contributed to the confusion.

“It was an extraordinary turn of events because five minutes into Chief Justice Roberts’
opinion, (if) you would have asked anyone in that room whether this law was going to be held
unconstitutional, I think we all would have said yes,” Toobin told viewers.“

CNN regrets that it didn’t wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the
mandate. We made a correction within a few minutes and apologize for the error,” the network
said.

Fox also blamed confusing reports for its initial coverage. “Fox reported the facts as they came
in,” Executive Vice President Michael Clemente said in a statement.

Some at the Associated Press were feeling smug about getting the news right. The
Los Angeles Times reported that David Scott, an editor at AP, had to send this memo to his
staff: “Please, immediately, stop taunting on social networks about CNN and others’ SCOTUS ruling
mistake and the AP getting it right. That’s not the impression we want to reflect as an
organization. Let our reporting take the lead.”